February 2013
Poetry
The Unfinished Mother
I. Prelude
Remember the yellow room, she says.
Bed of daisy blue linens.
Small chair in the window of sunlight, wooden.
Her favorite, most remarkable memory,
just in a day or an unknown time.
Her mother sent her away. A never born.
If only abortions had been legal.
My mother. Unloved raspberry of a fetus
become girl-child among ambivalent trees & dust.
She searches for a box to hide herself:
Some place to insert the most common letter.
A good size to hold something disposable,
or at least unwanted.
II. Verse
What is the distance between home
and a mother?
Today’s horoscope tells me
that you are a demon—I believe this.
The brief impossibility of myself
being mistaken: you exist.
Even in the absence of skin,
the silent passing of bones—
You stay soft and incomplete.
III. Refrain
Last night, I dreamt a closet full of spiders.
I hear you.
Leaning towards my doorway,
Consistent as sunlight—coming and going.
I am a daughter of sacrifice.
Alone, I search for the comforting sounds—
The surprise of laughter,
some sign of passing electric noises in the road.
And I wonder: In the dark of the other room,
what songs does your bed sing?